Rotary components of gas turbine engines can experience a wide range of vibrational loads during operation. For instance, one or more shafts or rotors can experience a large range of vibrational amplitudes and eccentricities depending on the operational conditions of the engine. The rotating rotors are typically supported and retained by bearing assemblies and vibrational loads are controlled and dampened by damping assemblies.
Conventional bearing damping assemblies have been configured to dampen either the vibrational loads experienced by the rotor during normal operations or the vibrational loads experienced by the rotor during high unbalanced or high eccentricity conditions, such as e.g., during a bowed rotor start or during cold oil operations. Although it is desirable to have damping capability for both normal operations and high unbalanced operations, conventional bearing damping assemblies have been designed specifically for these different operating conditions due to the conflicting damping requirements for damping the vibrational loads during normal operations and high unbalance operations. Thus, gas turbine engines typically include separate damping assemblies for damping the wide range of vibrational loads. These separate damping assemblies add weight and take up valuable space in the engine. Moreover, such conventional bearing damping assemblies have not provided optimized damping responses for the full range of vibrational loads that the engine can potentially experience during operation.
Therefore, improved damping systems and methods for optimizing the damping response to the vibration loads experienced by a rotary component of a gas turbine engine for a wide range of operational conditions would be useful.